1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wireless communications, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for operating in an idle mode for machine to machine (M2M) communication in a wireless communication system.
2. Related Art
Machine to machine (M2M) communication is one type of data communication including one or more entities not requiring human interactions, and is also called machine type communication (MTC). That is, the M2M communication refers to the concept of communication based on the existing wireless communication network used by a mechanical device instead of a Mobile Station (MS) used by a user. The mechanical device used in the M2M communication can be called an M2M device. There are various M2M devices such as a vending machine, a machine for measuring a water level at a dam, etc.
The M2M device has a feature different from that of a typical MS. Therefore, a service optimized to the M2M communication may differ from a service optimized to human type communication (HTC) communication. In comparison with a current mobile network communication service, the M2M communication can be characterized as a different market scenario, data communication, less costs and efforts, a potentially great number of M2M devices, wide service areas, low traffic per M2M device, etc.
Low power consumption is one of requirements of the M2M device. In a mobile communication network, an idle mode which is a low-power mode is provided to decrease power consumption of the MS. However, an operation of the existing idle mode may not be optimized to the M2M device.
For example, one of features of the M2M device is that the M2M device is fixed. Therefore, the operation of the existing idle mode which considers a wide-range movement of the MS cannot be optimized to the M2M device. There is a need for an operation of an idle mode capable of decreasing a signaling overhead and providing increased power saving.